Israeli government under fire for crackdown on human rights organisations

The Government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is coming under fire for what some see as a crackdown on human rights organisations in the country.

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JULIA BAIRD, PRESENTER: In the Middle East, Israel is often held up as a beacon of democracy in a sea of oppressive regimes and violent civil wars, but the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is coming under fire for what some see as a crackdown on human rights organisations in the country. With deadly attacks on Israelis by Palestinians continuing on a near daily basis, activists whose speak out against the Israeli Army and the occupation of the West Bank have been labelled by some opponents as terrorists supporting foreign agents. Middle East correspondent Sophie McNeill reports.

SOPHIE MCNEILL, REPORTER: Members of the Israeli Parliament debate a crackdown on one of the country's most controversial organisations.

ISRAELI PARLIMENTARIAN (subtitle translation): This wrong what's happening! This is political assassination!

ISRAELI PARLIMENTARIAN II (subtitle translation): This meeting was a disgrace!

ISRAELI PARLIMENTARIAN III (subtitle translation): They have a clear agenda on this issue! They want to embarrass us and delegitimise us!

NADAV WEIMAN, BREAKING THE SILENCE: Under a military regime is a soldier that was a part of the military regime for three years of his life. Nobody should live like that - nobody.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: It's people like Nadav Weiman that are causing such a stir. A former Israeli soldier, he now works for this controversial NGO called Breaking the Silence.

Today he's taking foreign tourists on a tour of the West Bank to show them the Israeli occupation.

NADAV WEIMAN: I don't think we need to control 2.5 million Palestinians to feel safe. I don't think it's right.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Nadav served three years in an Israeli special forces unit. He says he first began to question the occupation after his unit took over a Palestinian family's house.

NADAV WEIMAN: You break the door down in the middle of the night with camouflage colours on your face, so you grab the family members from their beds and you follow them to the toilet or to the shower and one member from 18 will sit with his gun towards them so they won't move or shout or anything. When they (inaudible) came down, I thought to myself, "I was brought up in Israel and they told me, my parents told me, when you are 18 years old, you join the Army and it's your time to protect Israel." And suddenly, I'm not protecting Israel, I'm just training how to be a soldier on Palestinians.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Using often anonymous testimony, Breaking the Silence documents what it claims is evidence that the Israeli Army acts immorally and in some cases even commits war crimes.

ANONYMOUS SOLDIER (Breaking the Silence video, subtitle translation): There were no civilians as far as we were concerned. If we spot someone, we just shoot him.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: These soldiers' witness accounts are from the 2014 Gaza war.

ANONYMOUS SOLDIER II (Breaking the Silence video, subtitle translation): I felt that we shot at houses just because, without even knowing if anyone's there. We shot at cars, at ambulances - doing things I was raised not to do - not to kill the innocent, not to shoot at an ambulance. It's like the Wild West out there and it was all approved by the commanders.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Breaking the Silence has always been highly controversial, but it has never been under such heavy attack as now.

One of the main groups leading the charge to crack down on Breaking the Silence is Im Tirtzu, a right-wing Israeli nationalist NGO.

ALON SCHVARTZER, DIRECTOR OF POLICY, IM TIRTZU: When Breaking the Silence are saying lies and telling Israeli IDF soldiers are doing war crimes, that an activity against the Jewish people, against the Jewish state.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Opponents like Alon are particularly furious that Breaking the Silence has taken its message against the Israeli occupation to an international audience.

NADAV WEIMAN: That entire area, that's the special security zone for the settlement, and Palestinians, they can't get inside. But you know what is inside? Palestinian lands, farmlands.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: It's a message that's reached travellers. Most of the people who take Nadav's tour are foreign tourists.

TOURIST: I learnt a lot. It was an eye-opener for me.

TOURIST II: Everyday life for Palestinians here and how they are treated and I've realised that it's really hard for them.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Human rights organisations and governments around the world also embrace the work of Breaking the Silence.

What's galvanised the campaign against the NGO is that it receives thousands of dollars of funding from the Norwegian, Swiss, Dutch, German and Spanish governments.

ALON SCHVARTZER: European money trying to change Israel from within. So everybody I think needs to stop and think if he will let it in his country, something like that happen.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Angry at this foreign support, last month Alon and his colleagues released this advertisement, labelling the head of Breaking the Silence and other Israeli human rights activists who receive foreign funding as foreign agents who support terrorists.

IM TIRTZU ADVERTISEMENT (female voiceover, subtitle translation): Before the next terrorist stabs you, he already knows that Yishai Menuhin, a planted agent belonging to Holland, will make sure to protect him from a Shin Bet interrogation. The terrorist also knows that Avner Gvaryahu, a planted agent belonging to Germany, will call the soldier who tries to prevent the attack a "war criminal". They live here with us, and are implants. While we fight terror, they fight us.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: And then this week, Im Tirtzu launched a new campaign accusing famous Israeli artists and writers who support Breaking the Silence of being left-wing moles.

The move was condemned by all sides of politics, labelled a fascist hate campaign and a new kind of Israeli McCarthyism.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Breaking the Silence is now facing regular protests outside its events.

PROTESTOR (subtitle translation): We will continue to chase you everywhere you go. We will not leave you alone. Day and night until you get banned.

NADAV WEIMAN: And they are trying first of all to silence us up; but it's not only us, it's all of the human rights organisation and left-wing organisation, all of the civil society organisation in Israel, they are trying to shut us up.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: The Netanyahu Government has proposed an NGO transparency law that will force groups like Breaking the Silence to declare and detail their funding from foreign governments every time they speak with a public official and in any advertisements online or written reports.

The European Union and American ambassadors to Israel have condemned the proposal, labelling it antidemocratic.

LIAM GETREU, NEW ISRAEL FUND AUSTRALIA: The aim of the law is to delegitimise and undermine these organisations. These organisations are the real opposition in Israel. This is what the Government doesn't like. They don't like the dissent that these organisations bring out.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: The left-leaning NGO New Israel Fund Australia raises money for groups like Breaking the Silence and is outraged by the bill.

LIAM GETREU: We want Israel to be in a club with Australia and the UK and the US and not in the club of Russia and China, which also seeks to undermine human rights organisations.

DANIEL LURIA, DIRECTOR, ATERET COHANIM: There's no problem if a millionaire overseas wants to fund a left-wing extremist group here, but a government? I mean, could you imagine for a second that the Israeli Government decided to fund non-profit organisations in Australia, if there was such an organisation that was trying to either stop or encourage immigrants coming into the country. It's no-one's business. It's the business of the country itself.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Nadav doesn't feel like he is betraying his country. The way he sees it, he's doing his patriotic duty.

NADAV WEIMAN (subtitle translation): I'm Nadav from Breaking the Silence. Shalom. Did you come to learn? Nice. It's important to me. It's important that you listen. ...

(In English) ... We are soldiers, we were a part of it where we did the occupation. We love Israel, but we are resisting the occupation.